The Czar: Usurper/Escape/Martyr/Spiral

At this point in the album, our protagonist's soul is in the body of Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin.

Rasputin was murdered by a group of envious noblemen led Prince Felix Yussupov in Yussupov's Moika Palace on the night of December 28/29 1916. Yussupov told Rasputin that his wife, Princess Irina would be present at his palace. Rasputin, who was attracted to the Princess, accepted. The conspiriters led Rasputin to the celler where he was presented with the infamous cyanide laced wine and cakes. The conspirters knew of Rasputin's love for sweets and assumed that the massive ammount of poison in the desserts would kill the monk. It is theroized that Rasputin drank small ammounts of cyanide daily so he would have an ammunity to this form of assassination. Hence the lines "enemies posion deep within my second sight Waisting valuable time"

After realizing that the posion had no effect on Rasputin, Prince Yussupov shot the monk with his revolver. Yussupov went upstairs to get his coat, when he returned Rasputin opened his eyes, whispered, "You bad boy." and proceeded to choke the Prince. His accomplices shot the mystic three times, after which, Rasputin fell. The conspiritors grabbed Rasputin, bound his hands and feet, wrapped him in a carpet, and threw him into the icy Neva River. Rasputin had managed to break his bonds, and was trying to claw his way through the ice when he died ("Streaching arms up high").

The line "Leave the Tsar to die" is a reference to a prophecy that Rasputin made. The gist of the prophecy was that if the peasents killed Rasputin, Tsar Nikolay would surive, and his rule would be strengthened, but if he was killed by the nobility, the Tsar would loose power, and be killed within two years. Grigori Rasputin was killed on December 29, 1916; Tsar Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov was killed on July 17, 1917.

I can't find out a direct reference to him going to Rasputin body. So I guess it is something implicit through the fact that the protagonist went to Khlyst era through the wormhole and now we face a death of a Czar. However, if you find out better evidences, please tell me, because these ones don't convince me.

Here we also find out what the Khlysts saw in our protagonists future (as explained in Quintessence) and the dangers that it involves:

"Don't stay run away He has ordered assassination Don't stay run away The henchmen are gathered and waiting Don't stay run away Your role as usurper is found out Don't stay run away Tsarina has warned of the danger"

And then they get killed while trying to take down the czar:

"It's your own fault That is what we wanted It's your own fault This is where we lay"

Now they must leave this world. However, when they try to do so, they find some problems in the way. Like some part of him doesn't want to leave this world. There are two souls (Rasputin's and the protagonist's) and part of Rasputin's doesn't want to leave that world.

"By the light of the moon You must escape into the deep black of the night Fight the devil inside Enemies poison deep within my second sight Wasting valuable time"

The following part I'm not going to comment. Unfortunately I don't have the sufficient knowledge of what happened to the real Rasputin (in real life, not in this tale) and his relation to the czar. But it seems the czar is usurped after, due the "shattered crown". I can't say if the "leave the czar to die" is a literal form or just figurative.

To end this part, it seems that Rasputin sacrifices himself to help our protagonist to escape through another wormhole:

"Spiraling up through the crack in the sky Leaving material world behind I see your face in constellations The martyr is ending his life for mine."

I read into the story of Rasputin and it really helps to clarify a lot of the meaning here. The lyrics deal with the planned assassination of Grigori Rasputin by Prince Felix Yusupov.

"Don't stay run away He has ordered assassination The henchmen are gathered and waitin"

Yusupov ordered the assassination and Rasputin was invited to the Moika Palace, where they planned to poison him ("Enemies poison deep within my second sight"). The poisoning apparently didn't work and Yusupov was forced to shoot him instead. However the story goes that he survived the initial shooting and tried to strangle Yusupov until the henchman had to shoot him three additional times.

As if the poisoning and four bullets weren't enough, they tossed him into the frozen river outside. Autopsies said that it wasn't the poision or bullets that killed him, but that he had water in his lungs and drowned in the river. His arms were frozen upward from trying to escape his icy grave ("Stretching arms up high"). Bad ass.

Brann Dailor's quotes help to illuminate what happens: "They put his soul inside Rasputin's body. Rasputin goes to usurp the czar and he is murdered. The two souls fly out of Rasputin's body through the crack in the sky(e)"

I read a bit about Rasputin the other day, and to me it seems like "beauties sudden hand" is a reference to the prostitute Khionia Guseva that attempted to murder him by stabbing him in the body with a knife.

The words "Stretching arms up high, We're on our way now, Leave the Czar to die" could be a reference to the fact that she thought she killed him and left him to die.

However it could also be a reference to when Rasputin was actually murdered the murderers shot him once and thought he was dead (or so the story claims) returning to find that he was still living.

Also "Leave the Czar to die" I'm assuming refers to how he predicted his assassination in writing and and stated that the royal family would not live two years after his assassination. Both of which came true.

I just picked up the new album a coulpe of days ago, and omg, its a fuckin soundgasm. also the line "Leave the Czar to die" is wrong. the correct line is "Leave the Tsar to die".

I cant help but feel that the line "I see your face in constellations" is directed to the death of Brann's sister, who was named "Skye"

Anyone else?

I don't think he's saying "by the light of the moon." It sounds more like "by the light of the road" or something

This song is about a quadraplegic man that has projected himself astrally adn traveled through time to rasputin and told him of his inevitable assassination.

The "spiraling through the crack in the sky" is the quadraplegic man being sucked back up from where he came.

the black hole shit is later on crack the skye... this is about the czar... the main character has to escape wether he thinks he can stop it or not or he'll die. then on the escape he is the enemys poison because he is plannign on passing on to the next life. then the assassins catch up and as they kill him he transcend through the crack of the skye, but the assassins thought that killing him would grant them omni presence but to no avail so they leave his body. as he travels through the crack in the sky leaving material world behind, Tsarina his wife sees his face among the stars and know that everything is ok, but that it was his own fault and that he wanted to transcend normal humanity so he got what he wanted